Adam loves baseball and has been practicing his batting skills lately. His batting is improving so much that we've had to move our baseball "games" outdoors(and yippee! the weather is finally cooperating!).
In honor of Opening Day, here's an encore of his ode to the seventh inning stretch last summer:
If you've been to our house, you know our dining room is our catch-all room. It's a play room, party room, occasionally a dining room, and now, most recently it's a music room. We have a piano!
I didn't know you play the piano, you say. Well, you're right! But in Michael's continuing effort to give our children very well-rounded educations and appreciation of the arts, it was important for us to have a piano for our kids.
We found this beauty on craiglist, and it was right in our price range -- Free! (Lamp and bench included!) Seriously, there are pianos posted online all the time for free, and it may need a little cleaning up, but you won't beat the price. All the owner asked was that it go to a good home.
Remarkably, her notes sound pretty good! No tuning required yet. She just needs a good bath. I've been slowing cleaning her ivories, and the outer casement could use a good polishing.
But the boys love it. Sam just recently discovered the instrument and enjoys slapping the keys and laughing at the sounds and he loves listening to other people play.
We are a little premature on starting lessons. (What's the rule on moms sitting in and learning alongside?) But we know it's something we definitely want to start some day.
And we have a rule... if you're going to play you must also sing!
Adam has always enjoyed the piano at Aunt Karen's house... look back at a year ago.
He's available for bookings. Call us for rates!
And a very special thanks to Josh and Dad for helping move this sucker. (Mom and I just moved it across the room and I was shocked at the weight!)
We recently joined the local YMCA (Hooray! After talking about it for almost 2 years!) and are already loving the community feel that's there. So much nicer than the big box gyms we're used to. I tell you, on week nights and Saturday mornings it's the place to be! (which translates to our first workout being the walk from the back end of the parking lot to the door!) So many fun activities for the kids going on -- ballet classes (love the little pink slippers!), tai kwon do, tap classes, basketball, climbing wall, etc.
We haven't taken advantage of everything yet, but I'm looking forward to trying out some of the classes and getting back into the pool for lap swim (and the hot tub).
Speaking of pools, we're taking a break from Adam's gymnastics and have enrolled him in swim lessons offered at the Y. I took him one Saturday to open swim just to get him comfortable in the water again and he did pretty well! I thought he would be very tentative and clingy, and while he's not near the comfort level he was a couple years ago (Exhibit A and especially Exhibit B), he is comfortable enough to participate in the swim classes.
He generally stays focused on class, or at least as much as the other kids do! Though he is more prone to be caught doing this than the others...
Eat the snow. Drink the pool water. That's how we roll.
He seems to love the class, and we really love his teacher Ms Pat.
Here's a little bit of him in action:
We love that he's loving it and loves being at the Y in general. In fact, he gets upset that he doesn't get to play in the Kid Zone after his class, which is a great sign that he won't mind tagging along to future work outs with Mom and Dad.
Plus, like I said, it's a great community feeling there. One of the other moms of a little swimmer is my OB nurse, and last week I heard a little girl say, "That's Adam!" I love that we are developing a little community here... finally. And hopefully developing a little swimmer, too.
Can't wait until Sam is 2 for the parent/child swim class!
